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Monday, June 30, 2014

Musing Mondays asks you to muse about one of the following each week…• Describe one of your reading habits.• Tell us what book(s) you recently bought for yourself or someone else, and why you chose that/those book(s).• What book are you currently desperate to get your hands on? Tell us about it! • Tell us what you’re reading right now — what you think of it, so far; why you chose it; what you are (or, aren’t) enjoying it.• Do you have a bookish rant? Something about books or reading (or the industry) that gets your ire up? Share it with us!• Instead
of the above questions, maybe you just want to ramble on about
something else pertaining to books — let’s hear it, then

I thought I would share with all of you that I saw the proofs for my novel, THE ROSE MASTER, a couple of days ago and they are fabulous! I can't wait to see the book in print, which will be July 9th, so pretty soon! If you would like the ebook, you can buy it by clicking on the title.

Thursday, June 26, 2014

Hi everyone, if you don't follow me on Facebook you may not know that my debut novel, THE ROSE MASTER, is now available as an ebook on Amazon. The paperbacks will be ready in a couple of weeks, but if you have an ereader and want to read a Victorian Gothic novel that is a cross between Jane Eyre and Beauty and the Beast, stop by my book's Amazon page below!

Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
Grab your current read
Open to a random page
Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
BE
CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t
give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

There is no teaser today because I am in the midst of celebrating and promoting my book's release! It has been such a journey getting THE ROSE MASTER published, but I am thrilled to finally be able to send it out into the world.
As a debut author, it is hard to get the word out on a book, so if any of of you could mention it around, share it with friends, request it at your bookstore or library, it would mean so much.

Oh, and don't forget to stop by my Facebook party to win some goodies!

Monday, June 23, 2014

Musing Mondays asks you to muse about one of the following each week…• Describe one of your reading habits.• Tell us what book(s) you recently bought for yourself or someone else, and why you chose that/those book(s).• What book are you currently desperate to get your hands on? Tell us about it! • Tell us what you’re reading right now — what you think of it, so far; why you chose it; what you are (or, aren’t) enjoying it.• Do you have a bookish rant? Something about books or reading (or the industry) that gets your ire up? Share it with us!• Instead
of the above questions, maybe you just want to ramble on about
something else pertaining to books — let’s hear it, then

My debut novel, THE ROSE MASTER, is released tomorrow in ebook form! I am beyond excited, as you can imagine. The paperback is available starting July 9th, for those of you who prefer hard copies.

Be sure to stop by the Facebook party tomorrow at 2-5 pm EST to win some prizes and get some inside looks into the writing process!

Friday, June 20, 2014

Ex-homicide
detective Ray Quinn never had glamorous thoughts of the life of a
private investigator—but being cornered in a bathroom stall by the
enraged philandering husband of a client? That’s something he could live
without. Retired from homicide and living with a painful disability,
Ray’s options are limited. Stick to the job, keep impetuous sidekick
Crevis alive, and spend quiet evenings with trusted pal Jim Beam, that’s
about the best he can hope for.

As a new client emerges, Ray
finds himself in an impossibly large boardroom holding a check with
enough zeros to finally lift him from his financial pit. The job seems
easy enough: find Logan Ramsey, an ex-cop turned security officer who’s
taken off with sensitive corporate information. But few things are easy
in Ray’s world, regardless of the amount of zeros in the check.

In
what should be an open-and-shut case, Ray stumbles across Logan Ramsey
in a seedy motel room. Only Ray wasn’t the first to find him. Now
Logan’s dead, the client’s information is nowhere to be found, and Ray’s
employer is less than forthcoming with the details. Suddenly the line
between the good guys and bad guys isn’t so clear. With a foot in both
worlds and an illuminating look at an unhappy ending that could well be
his own, which will Ray choose?

This was an interesting book, although it wasn’t
anything out of the ordinary when it comes to detective novels.

The protagonist has PTSD, which makes for a slightly
more original take on the detective-with-issues fad that has taken over the
mystery genre. He is likeable, though, and reads as a pretty realistic
character, so that is something to commend the author for.

The action is pretty well paced, with only a few
moments where backstory took over just a bit more than it should have. I also
enjoyed the look at a private investigator’s life, with all its details and
issues.

Wednesday, June 18, 2014

This is the story of
mankind clawing for survival, of mankind on the edge. The world outside
has grown unkind, the view of it limited, talk of it forbidden. But
there are always those who hope, who dream. These are the dangerous
people, the residents who infect others with their optimism. Their
punishment is simple. They are given the very thing they profess to
want: They are allowed outside.

I expected much more from this book after hearing so
much about it. It was all right, don’t get me wrong, but definitely nothing I
just have to recommend.

The pacing is just so slow. A lot of it does have to
do with world-building, I do understand that, but it just didn’t really pick up
at all until the very end. Even then, the action was overwhelmed by
descriptions and a million characters that could have easily been trimmed out.
What I think the novel needed, more than anything was a good editor who could
get rid of some of the extraneous information and characters that got in the
way of the real story, starting with the whole beginning chapter. The rule of
thumb is that if any section in a book, or character, can be removed and the
book still make sense, then it should be removed. There were a lot of things
that could have been chopped out of this one.

None of the characters were truly developed. Since
there was so much world-building, it is hard to get to know the characters as
more than action pawns the author moves around from scene to scene. In
particular, the “relationship” between the protagonist and Lukas made no sense.
It was insta-love for adults and…no, just no.

I don’t think I’ll be picking up the other two books
in the series. They are just too slow paced to hold my interest.

Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
Grab your current read
Open to a random page
Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
BE
CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t
give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Monday, June 16, 2014

Musing Mondays asks you to muse about one of the following each week…• Describe one of your reading habits.• Tell us what book(s) you recently bought for yourself or someone else, and why you chose that/those book(s).• What book are you currently desperate to get your hands on? Tell us about it! • Tell us what you’re reading right now — what you think of it, so far; why you chose it; what you are (or, aren’t) enjoying it.• Do you have a bookish rant? Something about books or reading (or the industry) that gets your ire up? Share it with us!• Instead
of the above questions, maybe you just want to ramble on about
something else pertaining to books — let’s hear it, then

I wanted to invite all of you to my Facebook book release party for THE ROSE MASTER! It is next Tuesday, the 24th, from 2-5 pm EST. There will be games with awesome prices and lots of giveaways. Let your friends know, too. Everyone is invited to help me celebrate my book's release.

Friday, June 13, 2014

Armchair Travel! Tell us about your favorite book in a setting you’d like to visit (a real place for this question)

I have to choose The Egyptologist by Arthur Phillips. I would love to travel to Egypt and see the pyramids, the Valley of Kings and the city of Cairo. Hopefully, I'll get to do that some day!

Now I wanted to take a moment to invite all of you who are interested to join the Facebook release party I'm having on June 24th, from 2-5 pm Eastern time for THE ROSE MASTER. There will be giveaways, games, and lots more, so stop by if you can!

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
Grab your current read
Open to a random page
Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
BE
CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t
give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Monday, June 9, 2014

Musing Mondays asks you to muse about one of the following each week…• Describe one of your reading habits.• Tell us what book(s) you recently bought for yourself or someone else, and why you chose that/those book(s).• What book are you currently desperate to get your hands on? Tell us about it! • Tell us what you’re reading right now — what you think of it, so far; why you chose it; what you are (or, aren’t) enjoying it.• Do you have a bookish rant? Something about books or reading (or the industry) that gets your ire up? Share it with us!• Instead
of the above questions, maybe you just want to ramble on about
something else pertaining to books — let’s hear it, then

I started reading The Innocent Sleep by Karen Perry. I'm about a chapter in and it's turning out to be a pretty good read. It sounds like a psychological thriller of sorts, which is probably my favorite type of book after a good Gothic. I'll let you all know how it progresses.

Friday, June 6, 2014

The first victim is a
horse: its headless, flayed body hangs suspended from the edge of a
frozen cliff. On the same day as the gruesome discovery takes place,
Diane Berg, a young psychiatrist starts her first job at a high security
asylum for the criminally insane, just a few miles away She is baffled
by the slightly unorthodox methods the asylum's director uses, and then
greatly alarmed when she realizes that drugs are disappearing.
Commandant Martin Servaz can't believe he has been called out over the
death of an animal. But there is something disturbing about this crime
that he cannot ignore. Then DNA from one of the most notorious inmates
of the asylum is found on the corpse...and a few days later the first
human murder takes place.

This was an interesting read, but it did not quite
fulfill the expectations its blurb creates.

What I felt, more than anything, was that its pace
was too slow for the genre. Although the very beginning (I’m talking about the first
two or three pages) is attention-catching, the rest slowly unwinds in a way
that doesn’t help maintain the right amount of tension.

The best thing that the novel has going for it is
the location. The action takes place in such a desolate area that it goes a
long way into building up a bit of fear in the reader. If the pace had been a
bit faster, tenser, it would have made for a truly chilling read.

As it is, I would perhaps recommend it to people who
like a literary thriller, although the writing is not quite literary.

Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
Grab your current read
Open to a random page
Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
BE
CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t
give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

So today I'm going to do a bit of shameless self-promotion for my debut novel, THE ROSE MASTER. Since today was the official cover reveal, I wanted to give you all a taste of what the novel is like.

Monday, June 2, 2014

Musing Mondays asks you to muse about one of the following each week…• Describe one of your reading habits.• Tell us what book(s) you recently bought for yourself or someone else, and why you chose that/those book(s).• What book are you currently desperate to get your hands on? Tell us about it! • Tell us what you’re reading right now — what you think of it, so far; why you chose it; what you are (or, aren’t) enjoying it.• Do you have a bookish rant? Something about books or reading (or the industry) that gets your ire up? Share it with us!• Instead
of the above questions, maybe you just want to ramble on about
something else pertaining to books — let’s hear it, then
My debut novel, THE ROSE MASTER, comes out later this month! I will be posting more info as I learn it, but in the next few days will be the cover reveal, which is going to be awesome. If any of you are interested in being part of the cover reveal or the upcoming blog tour for THE ROSE MASTER, sign up in the link below!